The IPL is finally over. Now we can get on with life, with more important issues, such as the number of hungry people in this country where some children are fed mud for
dinner, or the actual number of people so poor that they have to be exceptional optimists to believe that there will be a better day tomorrow, or millions of people
surviving without electricity and water as the sun's rays get ready to roast the country with the approach of a sizzling summer. Yes, there is life beyond the IPL.

Indeed, there was life during the tournament too, that was almost forgotten. Even now, though the matches have ended, unfortunately the IPL saga continues to unravel and hog
headlines. But when and if it finally recedes to an inside page or off television screens, perhaps most people will have forgotten the Sunanda Pushkar episode.

Wrong priorities

At least that is what she will hope although she is unlikely to forget the treatment she received at the hands of the Indian media. You can debate whether she was as
culpable as Shashi Tharoor when she accepted what appears to be a special favour, but the issue that the media focused on was not the impropriety of that as much as the
private life and times of one woman. Why? Because she is a woman and the media is sexist, as Tharoor suggested? Or because some people decided that a woman like that should
not be seen in the company of powerful upper class men like Tharoor? Or was it a combination of class bias and misogyny?

However you read it, the media's attack on Sunanda Pushkar was crass, in bad taste and lacked the basic modicum of decency. You don't kick those who can't defend themselves.
These are basic principles of fair play. But all that was forgotten in the IPL scrum.

There is another dimension to this story. Sunanda Pushkar is not the first professional woman who has had to face innuendo and sexist remarks. This is something many
professional women worldwide would have faced to a lesser or greater degree at some stage in their lives. Of course, there is a tendency amongst women who are successful to
forget such experiences, or brush them off as occupational hazards of being a professional woman. But scratch the surface, talk to women who are still struggling to get
ahead, and you will hear many similar stories. "How did she land this job?" "Who is her godfather?" "Whose favourite is she?" "Did she use her 'womanly wiles' to get ahead?"
Etc, etc, etc.

However you read it, the media's attack on Sunanda Pushkar was crass, in bad taste and lacked the basic modicum of decency.

If you are young and reasonably attractive, and you get a prized position within an organisation, these and other questions are almost inevitable. No one is prepared to
believe that you can get a job or a promotion on your own merit. Yet, when your male counterpart gets ahead through powerful contacts, or through influence, he is envied,
considered smart.

The issue goes beyond petty sexism, which is just one of the hurdles women still have to overcome to get ahead. The root problem is the absence of a level playing field,
where both men and women are evaluated on the basis of their capabilities. If indeed that had been the case, surely many more women would by now have reached top positions
in many professions. Yet data from around the world shows us that this is still not the case.

In her book The Equality Illusion, The Truth about Women and Men Today (Faber and Faber, 2010), Kat Banyard gives the following data: In the 50 largest publicly
traded corporations in the European Union, women constitute only 11 per cent of the top executives and four per cent of CEOs and heads of boards. In Britain, 22 of the 100
top FTSE companies do not have a single woman on their boards. In the US, only 15.2 per cent of Fortune 500 board directors are women.

Banyard suggests that the problem is not just one barrier. She writes: "What we are looking at here is not a single, invisible barrier quietly lying in wait outside the
boardroom or at the door of the Oval Office. We are looking at the cumulative effect of women being restricted by outdated structures and attitudes at every level in the
workplace."

Alice Eagly, a professor at Northwestern University, and Linda Carli, associate professor at Wellesley College, point out that the term 'glass ceiling' fails to capture
fully how women are excluded from power in the twenty-first century because it implies an absolute barrier at a specific level. They suggest 'labyrinth' as a more accurate
metaphor for what women are faced with. Right from the start the route to the top is littered with twists, turns and dead-ends as women negotiate colleagues' stereotypes and
the lack of flexible working. Women have to navigate it from the minute they step into the office, not just when they are trying to open the door to the boardroom.

Indeed, a labyrinth that surely includes sexist innuendo. Women have to develop an especially thick hide to ignore all this and carry on. Many fall by the way side for this
and other reasons, most having to do with the fact that they are women, that they are still expected to be the principal care givers for their children, and to 'sacrifice'
careers for family and marriage.

Even in sectors like IT, where women have found greater opportunities to succeed, the playing field is far from level. In a recent article in The New York Times
(April 18, 2010), Claire Cain Miller spoke to several women in the sector in the US who wanted to launch their own start-ups. One of them was Candice Fleming, who had worked
with Hewlett-Packard and a small software company. But when she wanted to raise funds for Crimson Hexagon, a company she co-founded in 2007, she was told by a venture
capitalist she approached that she need not bother to have a business card because they would refer to her as 'Mom'. Another invited her to spend a day on his boat and
showed her a naked picture of himself on the boat. How many men go through something even remotely similar? She approached 30 venture capital firms. None responded. Finally
Golden Seeds, a fund that helps women setting up firms, gave her funds. And hers is not a lone example.

Different rules

The point remains that the environment for women in the professional world is not always welcoming. In India, cronyism is now so accepted that no one thinks about it. Yet
men who get ahead riding on that cronyism do not have to face the personal flak that women do. And that is where the sexism lies.

So the Sunanda Pushkar episode might well be a blip on the horizon. But it should make us ask some hard questions: about the attitude of the media towards women, about
sexism and other hurdles professional women face during their careers and about what it will take to ensure equality and equity in the workplace.

Kalpana Sharma02 May 2010

Kalpana Sharma has been Chief of the Mumbai Bureau and Deputy Editor with The Hindu. Her opinions, which appear in a regular column with The Hindu,
are concurrently published in India Together with permission.

Rohan Nair
Why is it that so many columnists/opinionists use Western examples to illustrate what they initially project as an issue concerning India? (Is it because facts and data from the West are more readily available?) Even if the issue is the 'same' -- women in public spheres in this case -- there is a world of difference between the West and India. Decide which world you want to talk about, and stick to it. Mixing the two almost always ends up being a pointless exercise.

May 02 2010, 5:55 PM ·
0 ·
0

Deepa Kylasam Iyer
At least a section of Indian media has been unscrupulous and ruthless in its coverage of the murky deals in the IPL. Some national dailies hit a new low with their brazen vilification campaigns without verifying facts. If colourful stories make interesting news, then the future of Indian journalism looks bleak indeed!

May 16 2010, 9:26 AM ·
0 ·
0

chandrasekaran
As a male member born with large number of siblings (brothers and sisters) and also a cluster of above forty persons of male and female relatives (South India) I observe the women face hurdles everywhere. But the spiteful actions come from other women not exclusively menfolk, for example my sisters hate my wife (another close relative). I lived in Canada for five years and noted that women have to be extra smart to climb up the career ladder. I sometimes wonder at the energy women have to carry on with the two responsibilities - giving birth to a child and also go for earning - may a domestic help, agriculture worker, coolie, a receptionist, or an executive. I respect them but am put off by the enmity and the brawl among their own gender - mother-in-law, sister-in-law, cousins, colleague, and as usual male members.

May 22 2010, 11:42 AM ·
0 ·
0

Anita
I fully agree with what the author presents, many women have accepted all this to be a part of life sometimes not even realizing that this is not the way things should actually go even in the age of internet, mobile telephony, television, etc. How many decades more will it take for all people including women to understand that women constitute a fair part of this earth.
I do not resent the author using western examples to prove her point cause there's so little research on such issues in India as we are so obsessed with things like the IPL!!

May 28 2010, 1:39 PM ·
0 ·
0

India Together offers an excellent forum for people from diverse fields of expertise to present their views, share their experiences and raise questions about where our country and society are headed in the future.

Amitabha Basu

Retired Scientist

National Physical

Laboratory

India Together reader

India Together offers an excellent forum for people from diverse fields of expertise to present their views, share their experiences and raise questions about where our country and society are headed in the future.

I urge all democratic-minded individuals to road, contribute to and publicise the e-newsletters from India Together. All power and success to India Together staff for their excellent and vital contribution to our society!